The November Issue

Month 1: The Far East Company

How we started down this path is a good question, but here we are, trying to “build a business”. Over the summer I had a simple, but empty-headed thought “I’m not happy with my backpack. How about I make one!”. In the past, maybe ten years ago, ideas like this died quickly, and for good reason. Not for my generation though. When you think you can make a backpack, of course, you can. You can achieve anything you set your mind to like my mom said, and if you miss, at least you’ll land among the stars, which is from a number of Instagram posts.

So with this encouragement in mind, we started simple: buy materials and make a prototype ourselves. Which makes sense, we’re on a budget and we needed to understand the best dimensions and features before approaching a manufacturer. Design and materials experience is for the birds, YouTube and Google are enough, so we marched forward.

First was finding a fabric, a challenge for the inexperienced, doubly fun in Hong Kong’s chaotic materials market. What denier did we want? “Something like this” (shows store owner the backpack I decided I didn’t like). As you can see, maybe we weren’t prepared, but dreams rarely have all the answers, merely the direction, and we were on our way.

When 3 yards of fabric arrived I immediately began sewing. By immediately, I mean after work, on my floor, with a beer in hand. If you decide to make a bag or any clothing product, the first step is measuring the fabric. Your standard 12-inch household ruler isn’t a great start I recommend the paper measuring tape available (for free) from IKEA. Forty-eight inches is (almost) all you need and a sharpie and you’re (almost) a designer.

So I measured, cut the fabrics, and began sewing. By hand. Terrible decision, but I don’t have a sewing machine and entrepreneurship is meant to be hard. This is what I deserve. Pain in every finger from pushing a small needle through the thick fabric.

Even those of you that haven’t sewn a backpack before can imagine, getting the shape right without a frame to sew around isn’t difficult. It’s nearly impossible. The first model looked more like a handbag than a backpack, but that’s okay. Fail fast and iterate, right?

So we set out to build the frame, which was relatively easy. Being a lean startup, we found some cardboard by a trashcan on the street. It passed the sniff test (didn’t smell like shit), so met our quality standards. With some masking tape and a little bending, we had a decent box shape that met the vision.

Okay, cut ahead a month and we made significant progress. We ditched the completely useless prototype we sewed by hand and instead used a 3D model, compliments of an overpaid Fiverr designer. The 3D design served it’s purpose and gave our manufacturer enough of a starting point to produce an end product that met most of our expectations.

From a problem to a solution, in only three months. Not too shabby, but definitely not in line with the expectations YouTube and Instagram have set. Maybe entrepreneurship is a little more difficult, but we’re still on the path and still moving forward.

This is the first post of many to come as we continue to build our business.